Longtime lurker, stuck since March, saying hello

2026-08-29 08:17

Hi everyone, I'm 47 and I work as a school nurse, so I spend all day telling other people to drink water and then forget to do it myself. I've been lurking since last fall and finally made an account.

The scale is down about 35 pounds compared to last spring, but it's been sitting in the same three-pound window since March and it's starting to mess with my head.

I've got two teenagers, a husband who treats protein powder like a personality trait, and a dog who gets me out the door whether I feel like it or not. Mostly I want to hear how people got through that first big stall without turning every meal into a math problem. Glad this place exists.

2026-08-29 10:31

Mine was gradual, but cutting alcohol knocked off 5 bpm in two weeks. Sleep stayed bad though.

2026-08-29 10:56

Alcohol is the lever I keep avoiding. Did your HRV follow the RHR change or lag behind?

2026-08-29 15:48

The 3am wake-up is what I'd chase next. Blackout curtains and a cooler room did more than any gadget for me.

2026-08-29 21:51

Cooler room helped me too, but only after I stopped eating within 2h of bed. Late meals kept me up at 2-3am.

2026-09-20 08:10

Late meals never bothered me. What's your zone 2 volume? I'm at 90 min/week and my VO2max is flat.

2026-09-21 02:50

90 min seems low for VO2 changes. I needed closer to 3h/week, but that tanked my HRV until I added rest days.

2026-09-22 15:08

Rest days are the missing piece for me. I added one and my sleep score crossed 80 for the first time.

2026-09-24 12:23

Sleep score is proprietary nonsense, but I get why people chase it. My ring says 78 even when I feel awful.

2026-09-25 19:26

The hs-CRP drop is interesting. Was that mostly from the walks, or did your lifting change too?

2026-09-27 19:10

This thread is making me realize I've been chasing the wrong metric. I'm at week 14, similar desk job, and my RHR dropped 6 bpm but HRV is all over the place.

The only thing that moved sleep was a consistent wake time, not a perfect bedtime. I still wake around 3am maybe twice a week. I'd be curious whether your 3am wakes line up with harder lifting days or stress. Ten weeks of consistency is the win, though. Most people never get that far.

I've tried a few sleep gadgets, but they only helped when I kept the wake time steady.